


Meet Me in the Afterglow

by acollectionofdaydreams



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone Is Alive, Fuck Canon, Getting Together, POV Eliot Waugh, and he and Q finally TALK, hints of Margo and Fillory drama, mostly Eliot is just a little lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 06:56:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21114608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acollectionofdaydreams/pseuds/acollectionofdaydreams
Summary: Eliot wakes up from the Monster's possession to find Quentin has moved on, and he has to figure out how to live with that. Things are fine though. Everything's great. And then it gets complicated.





	Meet Me in the Afterglow

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Taylor Swift's song Afterglow! I just had this like vague concept of how Eliot would have felt if he'd woken up to find Q and Alice back together and then it turned into this.

Once, when Eliot was just a kid, he had loved climbing trees on his family’s farm. There was one tree in particular that he favored because it had the perfect branch placement for him to pull himself up to a decent height. It worked out really well too because his brothers, who picked on him relentlessly, were too lazy to climb up after him and would wander off to find something else to do after a few minutes of taunting. That meant he could have a few moments of real peace there looking out over his kingdom, which admittedly mostly consisted of corn fields. It wasn’t a long-term solution or anything, but it was a nice escape from the rest of the world for a time. 

Until the day he fell.

He had been on his way down when he missed a foothold. It was an easy mistake to make, but he didn’t manage to recover in time. His fingers scraped against the rough bark of the branch he reached for to steady himself, but he didn’t manage to grab it. The result was about a five foot drop straight onto the bed of grass waiting below. He didn’t break anything, luckily. Mostly he walked away with just some cuts and bruises. He did his hit head though, and he thought he must have passed out for a few seconds because when he woke, he barely remembered the impact or the fall. He had just been in his tree one minute and on the ground the next, and the world kind of looked a little upside down from where he’d landed.

Roughly two decades later, that’s what it felt like when he woke up after being possessed by the monster. Things were pretty much alright. Magic was back, they were all alive somehow, and he was going to recover from the ordeal. But everything looked a little upside down.

First, there was Fillory. To be fair, Fillory being a fucking mess wasn’t exactly headline news, but it was fucked in new and exciting ways this time i.e. it was apparently 300 years in the future and ruled by a Dark King. So, that was fun. Margo was absolutely beside herself about it. She’d apparently been overthrown by Fen, which was a whole drama he was still getting the details on, and had left the kingdom in the hands of her and Josh when it all went to hell. 

Margo being Margo, it hadn’t taken her long to form some sort of guerilla resistance group amongst the Fillorians upon her return. She sent nearly daily bunnies to the penthouse only sort of patiently asking when Eliot was going to join her there and help out. He really couldn’t though, which she knew. He could barely walk from his bedroom to the kitchen with how wrecked his body was, and Lipson would probably have his head if he went off to war on another planet in his current state. So, Fillory was fucked, Margo was a mess, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about any of it. 

Next was the Library. And Alice. And Alice and the Library, which was apparently a harmonious relationship they were all happy about these days. It was all very wild to Eliot, whose last memory of Alice had been of her destroying the keys and trying to take magic from everyone by force. She was doing good work to reform things though, or so he was told. He didn’t really ever talk to her one on one. It wasn’t that he was avoiding her, but when she came through the apartment, they never really crossed paths with more than the occasional nod. If it weren’t for Quentin, they’d probably never be in the same room at all. Which was the third thing.

Quentin and Alice were back together.

Maybe he should have seen it coming. They’d been off and on for as long as he’d known either of them. If the general consensus was that she was good again, it only made sense that they’d be back on. It’s just. He’d sort of thought maybe Quentin had understood him that day in the park. He’d said _"peaches and plums, motherfucker"_ and he’d thought maybe Quentin had heard what he really meant. 

_"I love you"_

_"I was wrong”_

_“If I ever get out of here, I want another chance”_

Apparently his message had gotten got lost somewhere in translation though. He was telling himself that. It was easier to stomach than Quentin knowing what he’d meant and moving on anyway. 

Confusingly, he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t on board with their reunion. Julia Wicker, of all people, was perhaps the only person more unhappy about it than he was. They’d never talked about it, not directly anyway, but it was definitely something he’d picked up on.

It wasn’t that Julia was mean about it or anything. It was more subtle than that. Pointed looks between her and Quentin when he mentioned Alice’s name. Well-timed field trips to help Kady with hedge projects when Alice was around. Maybe she was still mad about the keys or losing her powers to save them. God knows, she’d have every right to be. Or maybe something else had happened while he was gone. Whatever, it wasn’t his biggest concern about the whole thing, really.

He was selfish probably, but it wasn’t like he could control the way the bitterness crept in. He was trying to be better. It was sort of something he’d sworn to himself he’d do if he ever got a second chance at life. Most days, it was easy too. It wasn’t like things were bad between him and Quentin, after all. It was just kind of like nothing had ever happened. They were just the close friends they always had been. Nothing more, nothing less. Except for that feeling Eliot got in his chest whenever he saw Alice with Quentin. It wasn’t something he could help. It was just this tiny little clawing at his heart reminding him that this was her second chance, not his. She’d said yes when he’d said no. He really only had himself to blame, etc etc. It was fine though. He and Quentin were still friends, and they were still here. They were fine. Everything was _fine_. Until it wasn’t.

He and Julia had been sitting in the living room, mostly amicably ignoring each other, when the sound of a slamming door tore through the quiet apartment. Both of their heads shot up, and Julia raised an eyebrow at the same time Eliot shrugged in confusion. It only took a few seconds for the source of the noise to follow.

“I can’t be here right now!” Alice yelled.

She was marching down the stairs at a half-jog with Quentin hot on her heels.

“Vix, wait,” he said.

Julia rose from the couch. To do what, Eliot wasn’t sure, but she looked ready to run interference. Maybe it was just an ingrained response in them at this point to be ready to fight or flight at the slightest sign of a threat. And, God, what a fucked up thought that was. The amount of trauma they’d all endured really had to be above the millennial average. Regardless, Alice stormed through the living room to grab her jacket from the back of a chair.

“Whoa, where’s the fire?” Eliot asked.

He’d thought he was making a perfectly snarky and innocuous comment, but the look of pure hatred he got when Alice whipped her head around might have suggested otherwise.

Eliot felt his eyebrows shoot to the top of his forehead, and then suddenly Julia was at his side.

“What the fuck is your problem?” she asked.

Alice finished shrugging on her jacket before turning to give them a frustrated look. Instead of answering, she just groaned and brushed past them towards the door. Quentin followed her to the entryway and just barely managed to grab her arm as she reached the doorknob. She sighed before stopping to look at him.

“Alice, don’t leave like this,” Quentin tried.

“Q, you need to figure your shit out,” she said. Her voice wasn’t kind, but it had lost the heat she’d carried moments ago. She just sounded tired as she continued, “and when you do, then you can call me. Or not.”

He stood there quietly as she left and shut the door behind her.

Eliot looked to Julia for direction, and she held out her hand in warning before taking a step towards Quentin.

“Q,” she said cautiously, “is everything okay? That seemed kind of intense.”

He scrubbed a hand over his eyes before pushing it back through his hair.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, “don’t worry about it.”

He sounded exhausted. Eliot had seen the dark circles under his eyes and the tired way he often carried himself since he’d gotten back. Not that they’d talked about it. That crossed the ‘this is fine, everything is _fine_’ line they’d built. Whatever was going on now was clearly more than that though. 

So, he offered, “Come sit down, and I’ll make you a drink.”

He willed his aching joints to cooperate as he stood and crossed the distance between them. He placed a hand on Quentin’s shoulder to guide him towards the sofa. Quentin didn’t even react. As soon as Eliot started to steer him in the direction of the living room though, it was like he snapped out of a trance. He flinched his entire body away as if he’d been burned, and Eliot stumbled back a step. He tried not to let his shock show on his face, but honestly, what the fuck?

Quentin took a step back toward the stairs and snapped, “I said don’t worry about it!”

“Q!” Julia chastised.

He sighed heavily and turned on his heels before stomping upstairs without another word. He didn’t look unlike a toddler throwing a tantrum, which Eliot might have found cute in another circumstance, but seriously. _What the fuck?_

Julia huffed out a disbelieving laugh behind him.

“Leave him alone,” she said. “He’ll come back down eventually.”

He did come back down later when Eliot and Julia were ordering take out for dinner, but it was only to heat up some leftovers from the night before and then disappear back into his room. The sound of his bedroom door shutting again elicited a heavy sigh from Julia. Eliot didn’t look up, but he could feel the irritation coming off of her in waves. After a few tense, quiet seconds, she sat her phone down on the counter with a loud thump.

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” she said.

With a careful tone, Eliot asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No,” she said.

She brushed past him and up the stairs with a stubborn look on her face. Eliot sighed.

“Good luck,” he muttered.

He didn’t see her again that night, except for when she came down to get her sushi when it arrived. She met him with a softer smile and a grateful nod before returning back to Quentin’s room, leaving him downstairs alone. He ate his dinner and turned on the TV, for lack of anything better to do. Nothing good was on, but he settled on an episode of Friends for background noise. He glanced upstairs every now and then, expecting to maybe see some sign of life, but Q and Julia remained silent, and their other revolving roommates were all off on various quests of their own. So, Eliot did what he wanted to do least and found himself lost in his own thoughts.

Eliot didn’t blame Julia or Q for the disappearance act. They were best friends, and obviously there was some kind of bff heart to heart in progress up there. They were that type. The touchy feely talk about your feelings type of friends. During a lifetime without Julia, Eliot had sort of become the stand in out of necessity. Because of that, he knew Quentin’s head got so tangled up sometimes that he just needed someone to listen and prod him along while he sorted it all out in his rambly endearing way. Julia was the other half of his soul in that way, so it didn’t bother him to be excluded from whatever was happening up there. It just made him miss Margo.

Margo was not the touchy feely type. She was no less perceptive though. She just knew Eliot, and Eliot knew her. So they didn’t have heart to hearts, but if she were there, she’d have gotten drunk with him and regaled him with the latest Fillorian drama. Or maybe she’d have bullied him into binge watching some kind of nerdy TV show she’d gotten into. _Or maybe_, the devil’s advocate in his mind whispered, _she wouldn’t do any of that_. 

Maybe she’d be too preoccupied with her own shit. Too far across the growing divide between them to pick up on his tell tale distress signs. It had been a slow unraveling, but the distance between them was there nonetheless. They’d promised they’d figure that out, back during the fairy occupation, but that chance never came. Now Fillory was a dumpster fire once again that showed no sign of letting up. So, they were just going to continue to be stretched thinner and thinner until… what? If it never stopped, what was going to happen to them? How far could a rubber band stretch before it broke? Eliot scrubbed his hands over his face.

This was exactly why he didn’t like being left alone. 

A few more Friends episodes in, and he decided it was time for a drink. He rose from the sofa and reached for his cane. He stubbornly tried not to rely on it, but after a day of pushing his tired muscles too far, he couldn’t avoid it in the evenings. He knew that feeling all too well too. He remembered fussing with Quentin over using his cane when his body had gotten old and tired in Fillory. He had been just as stubborn then too. But then, he’d been well into his eighties, not a twenty-six year old with a broken body ravaged by a childlike god monster. Oh well, swings and roundabouts.

When he got to the kitchen, he was surprised to find that it wasn’t empty.

“I see you beat me to the wine,” he mused.

Quentin looked up from the wine glass in front of him like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The little frown lines on his face straightened in surprise, and Eliot chuckled. He walked past Quentin to pull another glass out of the cabinet. He had to stretch to reach the upper shelf though, which resulted in an unpleasant tearing sensation where his wound was still healing. He hissed out an involuntary groan and fell back onto his heels, his hands gripping the edge of the counter. There was the sound of quick movement behind him, and a hand came to rest on his arm.

“Stay there, I’ll get it,” Quentin said.

He did as he was told and focused on evening his breath as Quentin leaned up on tiptoes to reach the glass he’d been going for. His arm brushed Eliot’s side as he placed it on the countertop, and he took a step back. 

“Thanks,” Eliot said.

“No problem,” Quentin replied. 

He watched with very little attempt to hide his worry as Eliot filled the glass with the bottle Quentin had left sitting out. Eliot was getting used to those looks these days and also getting used to ignoring them. Still, he felt Quentin’s eyes on him as he shuffled around to sit on a barstool opposite him at the kitchen island. They settled into a companionable silence for a moment as Quentin leaned against the counter, and they both drank. 

Then, Quentin broke the silence and said, “I’m sorry. About earlier.”

Eliot raised his eyes to glance at him. He shrugged and picked up his glass again for another sip.

“It’s fine,” he said.

Everything’s _fine_.

Quentin’s eyebrows furrowed together, and he stared at the island between them. After a few seconds, he said, “No, it’s not.”

With those three words, something in the universe shifted. Eliot looked up again to meet his eyes, and there was an intensity there he hadn’t realized he’d been missing. Something wild and strange brewing in their depths as Quentin looked at him. It took him aback.

“Okay,” Eliot said.

Another loaded silence.

Then Quentin sighed and pushed off the counter to step up to the island where Eliot was sitting. Neither of them said anything for an agonizing few seconds. His eyes roamed Quentin’s face carefully, taking in the details that his happy place version of him hadn’t been able to fill in. The little wrinkles and scars and the light stubble along his jaw. Quentin seemed to be doing the same thing to him as his eyes flitted back and forth. The tension hung between them so palpable that Eliot felt like he could reach out and grasp it. Quentin cleared his throat.

“Um,” he said.

“Yes?” Eliot asked.

Then Quentin’s lips were on his. His breath hitched in surprise, and he froze for just a second. When his mind caught up though, he pushed forward eagerly to kiss him back. How they’d ended up here was entirely unclear, but there wasn’t a universe in which Eliot wouldn’t kiss Q back. Wouldn’t grab him by the back of his neck and pull him in close. Wouldn’t melt into his touch as his hands dug into Eliot's shirt and gripped his waist. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.

Quentin stumbled back a few steps out of Eliot’s grasp. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it up in a sort of comical messy quiff. Or it would have been comical if Eliot was capable of any thought other than getting his hands and mouth back on him. He closed his eyes, tried to center himself, and opened them again to find Quentin looking at him.

“I, uh, I’m sorry?” Quentin asked, breathless.

Eliot stared at him, trying to figure out what he was apologizing for. He couldn’t think of a single thing wrong in that moment. Then it hit him. Alice. Just like that, his walls slid right back into place.

“Maybe I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” Eliot said coolly.

Quentin gave him a strange look.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

Eliot said, “I get that you and Alice had a fight, so you’re probably confused or upset, but--”

“Jesus, Eliot,” Quentin interrupted, “is that really what you think this is? Still?”

Eliot stared at him, entirely uncomprehending whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. He tried to voice as much.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

Quentin sighed and paced a few steps away with his back to him. He stayed there for a minute before turning around again to face a still very bewildered Eliot.

“Sorry,” he said, “I--I’m doing this wrong. I just.”

He stopped talking for a moment and took a deep breath.

“Can we start over?” he asked. 

“Yeah, we can start over, Q,” Eliot said carefully.

He motioned to the chair next to him, and Quentin shot him a grateful look before sitting down. He fiddled with his hands for a minute on the counter, not meeting Eliot’s eyes. 

Then he said, “So, me and Alice broke up.”

Eliot raised his eyebrows at him. That made him feel a little better about the kiss, if he was honest, because he had promised Alice he would never do that to her again. Not that he had been thinking about that in the moment. It also explained the whole ordeal, he realized with a sinking feeling in his chest. Quentin was hurt and looking for comfort, and Eliot was there. That’s all. He’d fix things with Alice, they’d be back on again, and Eliot would only have been the needed distraction. Par for the course. So, he pushed all of the complicated and messy feelings down, sealed them away, and settled himself in to play the role of supportive friend.

Quentin had fallen silent, as if he was waiting for a response, so Eliot prodded, “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “Honestly, it was a long time coming. She said that I was using her, and I think. Maybe she was right.”

Eliot asked, “How so?”

Then, in true Quentin style, the floodgates opened.

“There towards the end,” he said, “I just felt so… lost. Like nothing was ever going to be okay again, you know? You were gone, my dad was dead, Julia was gone, and everything just kept blowing up in our faces. Then she was there again, and it felt like maybe this one thing could go right. Like, maybe if I could fix this _one thing_, the rest might work too.”

Eliot listened carefully, nodding along only to encourage him to keep talking. He’d known it had been bad. His friends had suffered a lot over the last several months while he’d been trapped in his mind. Quentin got the brunt of it though, it seems. He’d been unwilling to leave the monster’s side, as Margo told it, and he’d been through unspeakable horrors that Eliot could only guess at from the haunted look he got in his eyes at times. It hit Eliot then, listening to him talk, just how close of a call it had been. Just how far Quentin had been pushed. He’d been going to a magical therapist the last few weeks, at the insistence of Julia, and he was back on his medication. He was doing better these days. Eliot had perhaps taken that for granted and never stopped to think about how far he’d fallen before reaching that point.

“She’s right though,” Quentin continued. “You can’t just use people to fix you, and we both deserve better than that.” He paused. “She, and Jules, were right about something else too.”

Eliot was holding his breath, he realized.

Slowly, he asked, “And what was that?” 

Quentin had this weird look on his face. Like he was somewhere between a nervous breakdown and a profound revelation. He visibly wrestled with that for a few seconds before pursing his lips together and giving Eliot a more confident, settled look.

“I love you,” he said.

Eliot felt a little like he’d been slapped. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Wh-what?” he asked.

Quentin rushed on, “I know you said you don’t feel that way, not here, and I totally respect that. I just needed you to know, so that I’m not lying to you, and I’ll get over it one day. Probably. It’s just not fair to Alice or you or me or anyone for me to keep pretending it’s not true. I’m sorry for--”

“Q, stop talking,” Eliot said.

Quentin shut up immediately. He stared at Eliot, all wide eyes and flushed cheeks. Eliot could practically see him regretting it all and trying to figure out how to walk it all back. He reached out his hand gently and let it rest on top of Quentin’s, which was sitting on the countertop between them.

“I,” he started. He swallowed roughly. He said, “I was wrong, in the throne room. I told you we wouldn’t work because I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” Quentin asked quietly.

Eliot laughed. Q, always the brave one.

“Of fucking up? Of you coming to your senses and realizing I’m not what you want when you have other options? Q, I’m a mess,” he said.

Quentin flipped his palm over and squeezed Eliot’s hand.

“I am too,” he said softly, “but El, you never gave me the chance to show you that you _are_ what I want. I’m not going into this blindly, you know. I think I know who you are after fifty years.”

Eliot closed his eyes tightly. There was a wetness building there that he wasn’t willing to give into in this moment. Not yet.

“I know,” he whispered, “and I’m sorry. For not trusting you. I fucked up.”

He felt fingers brushing along his temple, down his cheek, and coming to rest along his jaw. He leaned into the touch. When he opened his eyes, Quentin was giving him a kind, sad smile. He felt oddly exposed. It felt like Quentin was looking directly into Eliot’s soul, at all the broken pieces, and by some miracle… still looking at him like that. Like he loved him.

“So where does this leave us?” Quentin asked.

Eliot stared at him for a moment and felt exactly like he was looking directly into the sun. This bright, radiant man who was somehow offering his heart to Eliot again, if he wanted to reach out and take it. His own heart was beating wildly in his chest. So this was being brave, he thought. Holding onto the thing that could burn you just as easily as it could heal you. It was terrifying, but that was what he’d signed up for, wasn’t it? This time, he was going to hold on.

“I love you,” Eliot said.

Quentin beamed at him.

“I love you, too,” he said back.

Eliot felt a smile tugging at his lips then and couldn’t help but give into it. 

“I guess we start there then,” he said.

Quentin leaned forward slowly and stopped just short of their noses touching. Eliot could feel the ghost of Quentin’s breath on his lips, and he closed the gap.

They kissed sweetly and slowly, as if this delicate moment might break and fall apart if they moved too fast. When they pulled away, Eliot left his forehead resting against Q’s. He could practically feel the smile on Quentin’s lips from how close they still were.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” Quentin said quietly, “or that it’s going to be like it was in Fillory again, but… I want another life with you. Whatever that looks like.”

Eliot nodded.

He said, “I’m probably gonna fuck up a lot.”

Quentin smiled and leaned forward to give his lips a quick peck.

“That’s okay, I’m sure I will too,” he said.

Eliot brought his other hand up to rest on top of Q’s where he was gently holding his face. They stayed there, foreheads pressed together and hands clasped between them for a quiet moment. Then a mischievous grin spread across Eliot’s face.

“Peaches and plums, motherfucker,” he said.

Quentin sputtered out a laugh and dropped his forehead to brush against Eliot’s temple. Eliot laughed too and slipped his hand down to rest on the small of Quentin’s back and hold him as they giggled together.

Quentin turned his head to press a kiss to Eliot’s cheek.

“Peaches and plums,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are always appreciated <3


End file.
